1997 - Spun off the thin client and embedded systems as Caldera Thin Clients which was renamed in 1998, to Lineo where President and CEO of Lineo was Bryan Sparks, the original founder of Caldera Systems.

2000 - Microsoft reached an undisclosed settlement with Caldera, which, according to Microsoft, included a substantial payment to Caldera

2000 - Caldera acquired several UNIX properties from the Santa Cruz Operation, including OpenServer and UnixWare, proprietary operating systems for PCs that would be expected to compete directly with Linux.

2002 - CEO Ransom Love left the company and was replaced by Darl McBride, and the company changed its name to The SCO Group.

2002 - SCO began to claim that Linux "contained SCO's UNIX System V source code and that Linux was an unauthorized derivative of UNIX". SCO filed suit against IBM for an unprecedented US$1 billion and demanded that Linux end-users pay license fees.

2003 - Microsoft bolstered SCO's financial situation by purchasing a license to UNIX technology and by helping to arrange funding.

2003 - Novell, from whom SCO claimed to have acquired its UNIX IP, announced that it had not sold the copyrights to SCO and that it retained them. In response, SCO sued Novell for slander of title in Utah, home state of both SCO and Novell.